We got through Christmas and are ready for the New Year. We're not planning on ushering it in by staying up until midnight, but we have Jalen and Brayden staying with us and Jalen may want to see 2008 enter. Goldman and I met Scott over in Illinois this morning to pick up the boys. Rose and I will meet Scott on Tuesday to return them. We got Layla and Jamil Thursday and get to keep them until tomorrow night, so we are having lots of fun with these kids. They're watching Harry Potter 5 right now and Brayden is sitting next to Shirley and asking her all kinds of questions about who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. Shirley very patiently answers all his questions even when the answer is quite obvious.

We went out to the Abbotts' on Christmas Day. They had celebrated with their brood the night before which is their custom but there was still some apple and lemon pie left. I don't know how many Margaret must have made. Rose, Shirley, and I all had to sample some of the ones that didn't get eaten. I tried both kinds.

We went by Chris and Shelly's after we left the Abbotts'. They showed us around their house and all the remodelling they have been doing. They didn't take the day off from their working on it even though it was Christmas. Besides their carpentry work on Christmas, they also did some jogging. I don't remember how many miles. Chris got one of those fancy phones for Christmas. He was calling me one day and Scott answered my phone with just "Hello". Chris didn't recognize his voice, apologized, and hung up. It rang again, and again Scott answered and Chris apologized. Chris caught on by about the third time and didn't think it was a bit funny. Scott did.

Pete called this morning. He and Janet had planned to leave Idaho this morning, heading for Arizona but woke up to a foot of snow and icy roads. They decided to postpone their trip for at least one more day. We did have an earlier Christmas update from Pete and Janet. They had nine for Christmas dinner of prime rib. We tallied up and though he didn't say who couldn't make it, some of the family was missing if only nine were there.

We haven't had a Christmas update from our 2 L contributor out west nor have we heard from Springfield Family about their Christmas. Donald thought he would be in St. Louis sometime this week after spending Christmas with Julie and Jennifer and their families in Plattsburg, but we haven't heard from him yet.

We need a Kansas contributor. Jana and John were busy getting settled in their new house with time out to spend some of the holiday with the Felins. We haven't had recent updates from our Kansas Branch and the holidays. Do we have a volunteer contributor?